Plant gossips… are almost cotton!

Archive for December, 2011

Subadult nymph of an Amazonian cricket living currently (a few days ago) near the Lago do Jacunda, Tapajos, Brasil. Me dunno the species of course. *

Even in the wilds of the deepest Amazonian jungle, photographers still make decisions about when to trigger the shutter and what to include in or exclude from the frame. These decisions are as much a lens into the imagination of the photographer as they are a recording device for the subject, and the difference in artificiality between farmed animal photos and wild photos are more in degree than in kind.

Kindly said. But maybe this is somewhat truer when it coes to what people think when they think about wildlife. Slightly biased… This is an animal (not a plant), with a spine (not an exosqueletton, we are the 99% –Oops, needs an upadte!), furry or featherous, etc. Admittedly, many pictures of tropical insects are fake somewhat. I know what it is: cheaper to breed your pet than look for it in the jungle (though that works too, but not as well as rearing these critters yourself). But for plants!

Anyway, the post is actually very interesting and unfortunately true.

*Of course, the setting is natural. And indeed, the same picture could have been taken in a greenhouse with palms that nobody would notice. Huh ho!

I myself just finished reading a book from Daniel Chavarria, which doesn’t even seem to have an English translation. I heard about this book about ten years ago, and was strongly recommanded reading it. The French title translate as “A tea in Amazonia” and guess what? I found it a month ago in a second hand book market. The whole plot basically begins here, on the Tapajos. Amazing coincident, wouldn’t it? Not a bad book indeed. A plot theory that would find echoes in the current worldwide political situation. Maybe that if you can’t find an English translation, this would be because there’s some truth in it, would it? Just kidding once again, I don’t believe in Tap tea. Not until I find a tree… :-)

So I left you long enough with such an unsubtle question, where am I? Of course I decided to go to the place every plant biologist wish to visit in his/her/its life, Amazonia. Note that I guess many other biologist kinds and non-biologists would have a little kid’s dream like this one.

When I eventually realised being a biologist is different from having an academic position, or a position in society at all, and since part of my family in law is here and there for some time now, I decided I better have to go. Some grow up, some go in.

After the fold, a few pix to describe a more precise area, since Amazonia exist only on a map, and we should probably better pluralise the place to better reflect changes in substance occuring between natural areas. But here it is. (more…)

If you’re like yours truly, you’ve been fed from birth almost with all these voodoo teevee documentaries, with all extraordinary life, all from the garden of Eden (that is, a biological eden). That or water beyond the oceans. But water is only a drink to me. Too many barking sharks, nefarious squids or giant mysterious monsters around. I kept keen on a deep green dream.